1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to electronic time measuring apparatus for measuring a time by counting a reference signal. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an electronic time measuring apparatus having acoustic data recording/reproducing functions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of conventional electronic time measuring apparatuses, or electronic timepieces have been widely developed, by which not only a total time is measured from a measurement time instance till a stop time instance, but also so-called "split time" and also "lap time" can be stored into an internal memory as an elapsed time after starting the time measurement. These conventional electronic time measuring apparatuses are described in, for instance, U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,605 issued to F. Suga, entitled "ELECTRONIC TIME MEASURING APPARATUS INCLUDING PAST RECORD DISPLAY MEANS".
While such known time measuring apparatuses are used, in addition to the above-described split time and lap time measurements, various time measuring conditions are required to be recorded therein. These time measuring conditions includes, for instance, a place where either a split time, or lap time has been recorded; a physical condition and form of a runner to be time-measured; and a weather condition when a time is measured. In such a condition, the various conditions when the measurement is carried out are written on paper by a runner, or other persons. Otherwise, these conditions are recorded by utilizing such a recording/reproducing apparatus as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,368,988 issued to I. Tahara et al., entitled "ELECTRONIC TIMEPIECE HAVING RECORDING FUNCTION". However, it is very difficult to store the abovedescribed various data by way of the key input operations during the time measurement, because a certain time is required for the key input operations and also cumbersome operations are needed. In particular, in case that the time-measurement condition recording is carried out many times within a shorter time period, the time measuring operation itself may be mistakenly performed, and the correct time measurements may not be carried out at desired measuring time instances. Also, in case of a large quantity of recording operation, a relationship between an elapsed time which has been recorded and a recording condition may be confused.